Hi,
The thread on miniature carriers has brought up some questions that have always dogged me concerning small craft in general and fighters in particular.
In general, when I look at the basic Rampart fighter I think I've seen different numbers listed for its size ranging from 10 dton to 15 dton. In addition its not clear to me whether this is meant to be a measure of the actual enclosed volume of the craft, the amount of space required on a parent ship to house this craft in a close fitted/conformal bay, or if its meant to represent a bounding box (LxWxH) that the small craft can fit within on a larger ship, perhaps including space for clearances and the like, or something else.
If you look at the images for this fighter as drawn in "Azhanti High Lightning" (AHL) and make some assumptions you can end up with different answers on just how big the fighter actually is.
Specifically, I traced out the shape of the fighter based on an image from the AHL maps to estimate the total enclosed volume. In doing this I assumed that the cross sections of the fuselage were circular in shape and that the wings and fins were about 0.1m (~4in) in average thickness. In doing so, I came up with an enclosed volume of about 1.7 dton (assuming 14 cubic meters per dton). I suppose we could round this to 2 dton to give a little margin for any stuff I may have missed (such as landing skids) or under estimated (such as the thickness of the wings and fins), etc.
If you assume that the craft can fold its wings to fit within a 3m diameter tube (as used for the launching tube on the AHL) I think you come up with a space that the fighter can fit within of about 5.9 dtons.
If however, you assume a bounding box equal to the craft's length, width and height, I think you come up with about 11.63m x 4.2m x ? for the craft with the wings and fins unfolded, or 11.63m x 3m x 3m(?) assuming that the wings and fins all fold similarly to when the craft is in the launch tube.
So when folded up I think that equals about 105 cubic meters or 7.5 dtons. Unfolded, I'm not fully sure of though, since I don't have a profile of the craft, and thus can't be sure of its unfolded height. If we assume 3m for height then we have about 146.5 cubic meters or about 10.5 dtons. However, a height of 3m may be an issue if trying to fit this craft on a small ship, since I believe the assumption is that most decks are about 3m tall, but (at least according to the game "Snapshot") some of that space might be dedicated to structure and services (such as electrical cabling, piping, and vents, etc). additional you probably also need to allow for a bit of clearance between the fighter and the ship's surface to allow the small craft to be moved around without scraping any thing on the ship.
In my early edition of Traveller, I believe that there is a statement that the volumes listed for carried craft are those required to fit the small craft on the larger ship and thus may be either a bounding box or the size for a conformal bay, however this early edition of Traveller does not appear to mention fighters at all. As such, an enclosed volume for a 10 or 15 dton "craft" may only be about 2 dtons, as I estimated for the Ramparts in AHL, and the 10 (or 15) dtons listed as its size may allow for all the extra space around the craft to allow it to fit into a hangar. However, in later additions of the rules, I believe that this wording may have been changed, and sometimes you'll see references to the need to account for 110% (or more) space when carrying small craft.
In addition, when you look at stuff like Trillion Credit Squadron and High Guard, the small craft design rules in there actually kind of seem to make it look like the volume requirements may actually represent the internal required volume within the small craft. Specifically, a requirement for X dton of fuel, or Y dton of maneuver drive kind of make me think that they mean the hull of the small craft has to house something of these specific sizes.
Beyond even this though, is another issue. Specifically, if I assume that 10 dtons is the size of a bounding box for a fighter, and then make my hangar bay 15 times this size to notionally allow the ship to carry 15 of these small craft, is that hangar really all that usable. Specifically, if the bounding box for my fighter is 3m with a length 10m and a height of 3m, this box equals about 15 dton, and I can arrange them 3 wide by 5 long giving me a hangar 9m wide by 50m long and 3m high.
However, is this really a viable layout. Is there enough space between all the fighters for the pilots, armorers, and maintainers to get to them? How do I get at one of the fighters in the middle to do work on it? Do we assume that the whole hangar is just one conveyor belt where returning fighters enter at the rear and whichever one(s) which are to lunch next are the three at the front of each line? Do we assume that the entire hangar may be exposed to vacuum when launching and recovering? Do we assume that there is some sort of force field protecting the ends that a launching or recovering craft can cross, but which otherwise holds in the atmosphere, etc? Or do we assume that the entire top (or bottom) of the hangar opens to let any specific fighter we want to launch or recover?
Its alot of stuff like this (as well as some other issues) that makes me question the real validity of trying to make a small ship into a carrier just by saying the notional size of a fighter is X dtons and I've provided 15X in space therefor my ship is a carrier capable of launching and recovering 15 craft.
I guess then it would be helpful to me if anyone can point to specifics in the rules that clarify whether a small crafts dtons listing is meant to represent its enclosed volume, its space requirements based on the assumption of a conformal bay, its bounding box volume, or other (such as a mix of the above). Once that is clarified then it would be interesting to see how some of the other issues can be addressed.
Anyway, just some comments and questions.
Regards
Pat
The thread on miniature carriers has brought up some questions that have always dogged me concerning small craft in general and fighters in particular.
In general, when I look at the basic Rampart fighter I think I've seen different numbers listed for its size ranging from 10 dton to 15 dton. In addition its not clear to me whether this is meant to be a measure of the actual enclosed volume of the craft, the amount of space required on a parent ship to house this craft in a close fitted/conformal bay, or if its meant to represent a bounding box (LxWxH) that the small craft can fit within on a larger ship, perhaps including space for clearances and the like, or something else.
If you look at the images for this fighter as drawn in "Azhanti High Lightning" (AHL) and make some assumptions you can end up with different answers on just how big the fighter actually is.
Specifically, I traced out the shape of the fighter based on an image from the AHL maps to estimate the total enclosed volume. In doing this I assumed that the cross sections of the fuselage were circular in shape and that the wings and fins were about 0.1m (~4in) in average thickness. In doing so, I came up with an enclosed volume of about 1.7 dton (assuming 14 cubic meters per dton). I suppose we could round this to 2 dton to give a little margin for any stuff I may have missed (such as landing skids) or under estimated (such as the thickness of the wings and fins), etc.
If you assume that the craft can fold its wings to fit within a 3m diameter tube (as used for the launching tube on the AHL) I think you come up with a space that the fighter can fit within of about 5.9 dtons.
If however, you assume a bounding box equal to the craft's length, width and height, I think you come up with about 11.63m x 4.2m x ? for the craft with the wings and fins unfolded, or 11.63m x 3m x 3m(?) assuming that the wings and fins all fold similarly to when the craft is in the launch tube.
So when folded up I think that equals about 105 cubic meters or 7.5 dtons. Unfolded, I'm not fully sure of though, since I don't have a profile of the craft, and thus can't be sure of its unfolded height. If we assume 3m for height then we have about 146.5 cubic meters or about 10.5 dtons. However, a height of 3m may be an issue if trying to fit this craft on a small ship, since I believe the assumption is that most decks are about 3m tall, but (at least according to the game "Snapshot") some of that space might be dedicated to structure and services (such as electrical cabling, piping, and vents, etc). additional you probably also need to allow for a bit of clearance between the fighter and the ship's surface to allow the small craft to be moved around without scraping any thing on the ship.
In my early edition of Traveller, I believe that there is a statement that the volumes listed for carried craft are those required to fit the small craft on the larger ship and thus may be either a bounding box or the size for a conformal bay, however this early edition of Traveller does not appear to mention fighters at all. As such, an enclosed volume for a 10 or 15 dton "craft" may only be about 2 dtons, as I estimated for the Ramparts in AHL, and the 10 (or 15) dtons listed as its size may allow for all the extra space around the craft to allow it to fit into a hangar. However, in later additions of the rules, I believe that this wording may have been changed, and sometimes you'll see references to the need to account for 110% (or more) space when carrying small craft.
In addition, when you look at stuff like Trillion Credit Squadron and High Guard, the small craft design rules in there actually kind of seem to make it look like the volume requirements may actually represent the internal required volume within the small craft. Specifically, a requirement for X dton of fuel, or Y dton of maneuver drive kind of make me think that they mean the hull of the small craft has to house something of these specific sizes.
Beyond even this though, is another issue. Specifically, if I assume that 10 dtons is the size of a bounding box for a fighter, and then make my hangar bay 15 times this size to notionally allow the ship to carry 15 of these small craft, is that hangar really all that usable. Specifically, if the bounding box for my fighter is 3m with a length 10m and a height of 3m, this box equals about 15 dton, and I can arrange them 3 wide by 5 long giving me a hangar 9m wide by 50m long and 3m high.
However, is this really a viable layout. Is there enough space between all the fighters for the pilots, armorers, and maintainers to get to them? How do I get at one of the fighters in the middle to do work on it? Do we assume that the whole hangar is just one conveyor belt where returning fighters enter at the rear and whichever one(s) which are to lunch next are the three at the front of each line? Do we assume that the entire hangar may be exposed to vacuum when launching and recovering? Do we assume that there is some sort of force field protecting the ends that a launching or recovering craft can cross, but which otherwise holds in the atmosphere, etc? Or do we assume that the entire top (or bottom) of the hangar opens to let any specific fighter we want to launch or recover?
Its alot of stuff like this (as well as some other issues) that makes me question the real validity of trying to make a small ship into a carrier just by saying the notional size of a fighter is X dtons and I've provided 15X in space therefor my ship is a carrier capable of launching and recovering 15 craft.
I guess then it would be helpful to me if anyone can point to specifics in the rules that clarify whether a small crafts dtons listing is meant to represent its enclosed volume, its space requirements based on the assumption of a conformal bay, its bounding box volume, or other (such as a mix of the above). Once that is clarified then it would be interesting to see how some of the other issues can be addressed.
Anyway, just some comments and questions.
Regards
Pat